Negev Nuclear Research Center
Coordinates: 31°00′05″N 35°08′40″E / 31.0013°N 35.1445°E
The Negev Nuclear Research Center (Hebrew: קריה למחקר גרעיני – נגב, officially Nuclear Research Center – Negev or NRCN, unofficially sometimes referred to as the Dimona reactor) is an Israeli nuclear installation located in the Negev desert, about thirteen kilometers south-east of the city of Dimona.
Construction of the facility began in 1958 and its heavy-water nuclear reactor went active sometime between 1962-1964. Israel claims that the nuclear reactor and research facility is for research purposes into atomic science. However, the purpose of the reactor is believed to be the production of nuclear materials that may be used in Israel's nuclear weapons. Information about the facility remains highly classified and with respect to nuclear weapons the country maintains a policy known as nuclear ambiguity—refusing either to confirm or deny their possession. Israel had produced its first nuclear weapons by 1967 and it has been estimated to possess anywhere between 80-400 nuclear weapons.
The airspace over the Dimona facility is closed to all aircraft, and the area around it is heavily guarded and fenced off. During the Six-Day War, an Israeli missile shot down an Israeli Mirage III fighter that inadvertently flew over Dimona. In 1973 a strayed Libyan airliner was approaching the airspace above Dimona facility. Israeli fighters shot it down after failure to make it follow them, killing 108 people.
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